Christie offers compromise on teacher reviews

The state Department of Education announced Monday that student test scores on the new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, would play a lesser role in evaluations for fourth- through eighth-grade language arts and math teachers.
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TRENTON – Gov. Chris Christie has eased some of the new pressures facing teachers whose annual job reviews depend on the quality of their students’ test scores.

The state Department of Education announced Monday evening that student test scores on the new Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, would play a lesser role in evaluations for fourth- through eighth-grade language arts and math teachers.

Educators, policy makers and the governor’s office have becoming increasingly at odds over the new teacher evaluations and standardized tests as they have argued over ways to improve the quality of education without punishing talented teachers who have poorly performing students. State officials have said that including test scores in teacher evaluations is necessary to hold them accountable.

During the 2014-15 school year — the first year that the PARCC test would be administered — it will count for only 10 percent of a teacher’s evaluation score, according to state education officials.

The reprieve will be short-lived. The following year, the test will count for up to 20 percent of the evaluation score, a number that the department might reduce later. Under the 2013-14 teacher evaluation system, which was the first year that the scores were used in job reviews, state standardized tests accounted for 30 percent of a teacher’s score.

Educators across the state had worried about the timing of adopting PARCC while still learning how to score the new teacher evaluation system, which was instituted in September 2013. The changes follow massive revision of school curricula, as districts implemented the Common Core State Standards. New Jersey adopted the Common Core about four years ago as a way to infuse schools with more rigorous course work.

“Those of us in the classroom know that the entire process is dangerously out of sync,” Wendell Steinhauer, president of the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said in a prepared statement.

Christie has been a strong supporter of Common Core adoption and the new teacher evaluation system. First adopted by 44 states as a way to increase rigor and unify the nation’s patchwork of lesson plans, Common Core has come under intense scrutiny in recent months.

“The new curricula to comply with the Common Core are not fully in place in most districts. Many districts do not possess the technology — or the resources to acquire it — that is central to PARCC administration, and both teachers and administrators still have much work to do to develop and implement the key elements of the new (teacher) evaluation system,” Steinhauer said.

But policymakers announced the compromise late Monday, when the Department of Education announced the changes to its teacher evaluation process, and Christie’s office announced the establishment of a commission to study the student assessments.

“Establishing this commission is just another step in ensuring we’re providing the best quality education possible to our students,” Christie said in a news release.

Among its duties, the commission’s nine appointed members will review the volume and frequency of student testing occurring in New Jersey. The commission’s initial report of recommendations will be due to the governor’s office by Dec. 31 and its final report will be issued by July 31, 2015.